Summary
Blanca Ojanguren, a 22-year-old Spanish tourist, was fatally attacked by an elephant at the Koh Yao Elephant Care sanctuary in Thailand while bathing the animal.
She was struck by its tusk, resulting in fatal injuries.
This tragedy highlights the risks of popular recreational activities involving elephants in Thailand.
It follows a recent fatal attack by a wild elephant on a Thai woman and adds to the 39 elephant-related deaths reported in 2024.
Looking at some lists of the most dangerous animals, most deaths seem to be a result of the animals spreading diseases or using venom. The only animal most people need to be worried about killing them using size and strength is another person.
I was just responding to the comment about why people would pet an elephant over a lion or bear.
If I was told I had to Walk into one of two rooms, both having completely wild animals, I’d pick the elephant over a lion or bear 100% of the time
In that case I’d agree with you. It seems like the only objective way to say how dangerous an animal is is to look at something like reported deaths, but you’d really want to divide those numbers by some measure of how frequently each animal encounters a human, and they data is not so readily available.